Last call

The Art Bar, Canada’s longest-running weekly poetry series, drops the mic after a quarter century

On a warm July night in 2010, in the back room of Clinton’s Tavern in downtown Toronto, a tall bearded man took the stage amid murmurs floating across the room. “Hey, I think I’ve heard of this guy,” said one audience member, while another whispered, “Someone told me about this poet. I can’t wait to hear him!” A moment later, Shane Koyczan, a spoken-word poet from Penticton, B.C., began reading and the room fell silent.